


Rise From The Ashes

by RootsArrow (SparklingDarkAngel)



Series: From The Ashes They Rose [1]
Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Alternare Universe - Everybody Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Death Fix, Fix-It, Multi, Post Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-29
Updated: 2018-11-29
Packaged: 2019-09-02 03:03:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16778314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SparklingDarkAngel/pseuds/RootsArrow
Summary: In the wake of Samaritan’s defeat, the members of Team Machine are alone and hurting until they find each other again.





	Rise From The Ashes

“Five. Seven. Four. Two. Papa. Romeo. Alfa. Mike. Echo. November. Alfa. Delta. Echo. Alfa. Victor. Echo.”

It was an address. But more importantly, Sameen knew the automated voice on the other side of the line. Against all the odds, The Machine had put herself back together, returned to Earth, and now she was reaching out to her asset again. A smile took over her face. She felt something stirring in her belly, something she hadn’t felt since The Machine went down: hope. 

“5742 Promenade Avenue,” Sameen repeated to herself. “Come on, Bear. It looks like we’re back in business.”

The Belgian Malinois at her side barked happily. He followed as Sameen began to walk with a new spring in her step. Promenade Avenue wasn’t a far walk from where she was, and she already knew a row of apartments lined the street. She didn’t know why The Machine was sending her there, but she held out hope that it would lead her to news about John and Harold. 

Once she reached the street, she entered the building at 5742. Just as she closed the door behind her, the phone hanging on the wall started to ring. She picked it up and held it to her ear. “Two. Zero. Nine,” The Machine recited. 

Sameen raced up the stairs to find apartment 209 with Bear hot on her heels. She counted the doors until she arrived at 209. From the outside, there didn’t appear to be anything special about it, and Sameen felt a flicker of doubt in her mind. She had no idea what to expect when she raised her fist and knocked on the door. 

Footsteps echoed from the inside. One lock clicked, then another. The door began to open outwards slowly. Sameen took a step back and braced herself for whoever was on the other side. Her whole body froze as her eyes fell upon a face she thought she would never see again. 

“Root.”

Her brown eyes welled up with emotion as she nodded. “Sameen,” she whispered gently. “She brought you to me, didn’t she?”

“Yeah,” Sameen replied gruffly. Her voice didn’t want to work for her. 

“So she’s back,” Root realized. “And we won.”

An unfamiliar heat radiated from the back of Sameen’s eyes as she nodded. It was all she could do. 

Root stepped to the side and pushed the door open further. “You should come in,” she stated. “There’s much we need to talk about.”

Sameen stepped inside and looked around. It was a modest apartment, but something about the bareness of the walls made the whole place feel cold. She walked towards a plain couch and sat down. Bear followed her and laid at her feet. The world was beginning to feel heavy on her shoulders, and a couple of tears broke away from her eyes. 

“You have no idea how sorry I am,” Root said as she sat down next to her. She took one of Sameen’s hands in her own and squeezed. “I never wanted to hurt you.”

With her free hand, Sameen wiped at her wet cheeks. “How are you here?” she asked. 

“When I was in the hospital, I began to question how we would ever beat Samaritan,” Root began. “With the way things were going, I knew we weren’t going to. So I asked Her for a favor.” She paused, tears filling her own eyes. “I wanted to give Harry a push; to remind him what was at stake if we lost. So I asked Her to make me disappear.”

“Your plan worked,” Sameen replied. She wanted to be angry, but she didn’t have it in her. She had Root back, and that was all that mattered. “The grief Harold felt- that we all felt- it was enough to drive him towards drastic action. We took down Samaritan for you.”

“What happened to him?” Root asked. “Is he...?”

“I don’t know,” Sameen answered. 

A heavy silence filled the room. She wasn’t sure who moved first, but suddenly her lips were desperately grabbing at Root’s. Grabbing at her waist, Sameen tugged Root closer to her until the other woman was on her lap. Root returned the kiss with a feverish passion, trying to communicate everything she couldn’t say. The message was clear. Sameen pulled away to put it into words. “I love you.” It was the first time she had ever uttered those words, and they felt uncomfortable on her tongue. Still, it was the truth, and Sameen desperately needed to say it. 

“I love you too, Sameen,” Root responded, her voice cracking. Tears ran down both of their cheeks as they clung onto each other. 

Sameen wasn’t sure how much time passed before Root straightened. “It’s Her,” she announced. “She wants us to go somewhere: Columbus Park.”

“Let’s go,” Sameen said, quickly rising to her feet. The Machine had led her back to Root. Now she could only hope the ASI had more reunions in mind. 

XXX

“You know John has always been living on borrowed time.”

The Machine’s words played over and over in Harold’s mind. Was it really fate? Was John so broken that in any universe he would either die by his own hand or sacrifice himself? Clearly The Machine had thought so. John had always been a time bomb, just waiting to explode, and now Harold was left alone in the wreckage. 

He still couldn’t believe the man he had grown to love was gone from this world. John deserved so much better than he got from this life. The world took and took from him, yet still John gave and gave until he had nothing left. Perhaps it was selfish, but Harold wished he could give just a little more. 

Sitting in the quiet of Columbus Park, Harold stared up at the loft he had given John for his birthday years ago. He kept hoping his friend would appear in the window though he knew it was impossible. Yet he kept doing it, hoping one day John would simply come home. 

Barking filled his ears, but he ignored it until he felt a wet, dog tongue on his hand. Startled, he looked down to meet the happy eyes of a familiar Belgian Malinois. “Bear!” he exclaimed. The dog leapt up on him to lick his face. Harold turned, expecting Sameen to have found him and froze. 

Sameen did find him. But she wasn’t alone. 

Harold gasped and quickly scrambled to his feet. Between his old back injury and the stitches covering his bullet wound, he wasn’t a fast walker, but the tall woman by Shaw’s side crossed the distance and pulled him into a gentle hug. “Miss Groves,” he murmured. “It’s so good to see you again.”

“It’s good to be seen again,” Root replied with a sad laugh. She pulled away and looked down at him with heavy eyes. “I am so sorry I led you to believe I was dead, Harry. I didn’t know what else to do.”

The relief Harold felt gave way to the pain of betrayal as he stepped away, unable to look her in the eyes. “Why did you do it?” he asked. 

“Because I was scared,” Root admitted. “But also because I believed in you. Harry, you were our only hope of defeating Samaritan, and I didn’t know how else to convince you.”

“Harold,” Sameen interrupted. “You were with John. Did he...?”

John. The name felt like a punch to the gut. Harold squeezed his eyes shut to hold back the tears that were threatening to fall and shook his head. Bear whined and nudged at his hand, but there was nothing that could make him feel better. 

“There’s something you need to know,” Root said. Harold forced himself to look up. Sameen looked stricken, and Root had an arm loosely wrapped around her shoulder. “She’s back, Harold. The Machine’s alive.”

Despite the pain, Harold managed a small smile. “John would be happy to know that. He gave his life so The Machine could keep Samaritan from escaping,” he explained. 

He was about to continue, but a soft ringing stopped him. Next to the bench he had been sitting on was a payphone, and he was pretty sure he knew who was on the other end. Harold walked over to the phone and held it up to his ear. “Mike. Hotel. Charlie. Three. Two. Eight,” the old, familiar voice of The Machine recited. 

“MHC 328,” Harold repeated for the rest of the group. 

“Wait, MHC?” Sameen questioned. “Like the hospital?”

“Why would The Machine be sending us to a hospital?” Harold wondered. 

“Whatever it is, it’s important,” Root interjected. “Otherwise she wouldn’t be sending us there.”

Harold turned to address John before remembering he wasn’t there, and a fresh wave of pain washed over him. He wanted to walk away from everything, but if this was The Machine’s way of giving them a new number, then John would want him to continue. It was time to get back to work. 

XXX

Since Sameen was the only one of the three who was medically trained, they decided that she would be the one to disguise herself as the nurse guiding Harold and Root to room 328, along with Bear in his service dog vest. The hospital was so busy that no one gave them a second glance as Sameen navigated the long halls. Harold had never liked the smell of hospitals ever since his dad got sick when he was young. It was a place of death, and after everything that happened he didn’t want to be reminded of death. 

He was so deep in thought that he almost didn’t notice when Sameen stopped at the door marked 328. She picked the paperwork off the door and began to flip through it. “Looks like we have ourselves a John Doe,” she observed. “And with multiple gunshot wounds too. Whoever this guy is, he is not having a good day.”

“Sounds like someone wants our guy dead,” Root agreed. She pushed the door open gently and let herself in. Harold swallowed hard and forced his feet forward. It still felt far too soon to be doing this without John. He hadn’t even taken the time to catch his breath after taking down Samaritan, but to not continue forward with the work he and John had done together felt like an insult to his memory. 

The moment he crossed the threshold, Bear pulled the leash out of his hand. “Bear, nee!” Harold called after him, but the dog ignored him and sat at the side of the hospital bed. He whined softly before resting his head on the floor. 

“What is it, Bear?” Sameen asked. While she moved to inspect the patient, Harold began to take in his surroundings. John Doe was hooked up to a heart monitor and an IV bag. His heartbeat seemed slow, but for someone unconscious and most likely drugged up it was probably normal. He was about to ask Sameen when she gasped hard. 

She called for Harold, but he was already moving towards the bed. His heart leapt into his throat as he wondered what could have possibly shocked Sameen. Then his eyes fell on John Doe’s face, and Harold fell to his knees. 

The hard jolt to his knees sent shockwaves up his injured back. His nerves screamed, but he hardly noticed. “John,” he gasped. This time there was no holding back the tears that rushed down his cheeks as he let out a shaky sob. Root slid her arms around his chest and helped him back to his feet long enough for him to take the few steps to John’s bed and collapse again by his friend’s side. 

“It says here that he’s been through multiple surgeries, but he appears to be on the mend now,” Sameen explained. “Harold, what happened?”

“Samaritan managed to send itself to a satellite,” he started. “Our only hope of stopping it was to send The Machine after it. But Samaritan had already launched a missile at the antenna to stop us. We didn’t have much time, so I locked John in the vault and made my way to the rooftop. But The Machine tricked me. It took me to the wrong place and sent John to stop Samaritan.” His voice broke off, and he was unable to continue. It was his own damned creation that almost killed John, yet without The Machine he would already be dead. “He made it off the rooftop,” Harold whispered to himself. 

A sharp knock at the door quickly drew everybody’s attention to a real nurse, a young woman who looked like she hadn’t slept in days. “Is everything alright in here?” she asked. 

“Everything’s great actually,” Sameen answered. “This man was able to identify our John Doe.”

“He’s my husband,” Harold quickly improvised. “John Riley. I’m just so happy to see him alive after he didn’t come home.”

The nurse smiled warmly at him. “Let me fetch the doctor,” she said. “She’ll be so relieved you found him.” She shut the door behind her, leaving the team alone. Harold turned back to John and reached for his face. The other man’s skin was surprisingly warm. Without thinking about it, Harold began to stroke his cheek. His fingers slid over the various cuts and stubble, and he longed for John’s eyes to open. 

Root placed her hand on his shoulder and gently squeezed. “We’re all together again,” she said softly. 

“Not all of us,” Sameen replied. “I’m going to call Lionel. He’s been worried sick about you two.”

Harold nodded his agreement. As Root had said, they were all together again. No matter what happened, he knew everything was going to be fine. 

XXX

It was hard to watch Harold pine at John’s bedside. A week passed by, and while John’s condition was steadily improving he had yet to wake up. Harold barely ate or slept. All he wanted to do was sit by John’s side. And Root couldn’t blame him at all. She remembered how she felt when Sameen was taken and how the fear was enough to eat a person alive. 

In the mean time she had begun working numbers with Shaw. The two of them fell right into place as if they had never been apart. They had also started to rebuild the subway. Root couldn’t bear to let go of the place that had become her home. After Hanna was taken she didn’t think a place would ever feel like home again, and she was content to wander. But now she wanted more. 

For now Root spent her nights in the subway. The old mattress didn’t make the most comfortable bed, but it comforted her to be near The Machine in the place she knew her family would always return to. 

She wasn’t expecting Sameen to return with her that night and sit on the mattress next to her. 

“You’ve really been sleeping down here?” Sameen asked. 

“Yeah,” Root answered. “I like knowing that if anyone came for Her in the middle of the night I’d be here.”

Sameen tilted her head and stared down at her curiously. “But Samaritan’s gone. Who would come for The Machine now?” 

“Probably no one,” Root admitted sheepishly. 

“I guess we’re all still a bit on edge,” Sameen replied. She kicked her shoes off and laid on the mattress facing Root. Her eyes were soft, the kind of softness that was reserved only for the other woman. Root knew that Sameen wasn’t a gentle person, but her hard exterior seemed to melt a little bit when they were together. “Well, you don’t have to guard Her alone.”

Root’s breath hitched in her throat. The way she felt about Sameen was foreign to her, but she knew it was right. “Are you offering to stay the night?” she asked with a coy smile. 

“No,” Sameen answered, smirking. “I’m telling you that I’m staying the night.” She pulled the blanket up around them and settled in, rolling onto her other side. Root smiled at her back and rolled over as well. With her back pressed against Sameen’s, she felt safer than she had in a long time. 

XXX

John came to his senses slowly. The first thing he registered was the steady beeping of a heart rate monitor, presumably measuring his own heart. He could make out two hushed, male voices, but he couldn’t make any sense of what they were saying. They felt familiar enough that he could relax. 

What happened? He racked his brain, trying to remember how he got here but came up with nothing. They were fighting Samaritan weren’t they? That was right, he could start to put the pieces together now. There was a vault, and Harold, and a missile. Samaritan ops were firing at him, and then they were running- running from the missile. And John was crawling, praying for a miracle; to see Harold again. 

He cracked his eyes open. The room was thankfully dim. His whole body felt like lead, and it took all his strength to turn his head to look at the voices. On the other side of the room, Harold and Lionel stood discussing something. He strained his ears, hoping to make out some of the conversation. 

“All I’m saying is you won’t be able to help John if you’re dead.”

“I appreciate the concern, Detective, but I do know how to take care of myself.”

“Really? Because I don’t think you do. You have Shaw, Coco Puffs, and me to help look after Wonderboy here, but you won’t even leave his side to shower.”

“Detective, I assure you-”

A loud cough forced its way out of John’s dry throat, shaking his entire frame. The other two men in the room turned to him, clearly startled. “John!” Harold exclaimed as he rushed over to his bedside. He sat in an armchair that had been moved by the bed and took John’s hand. “You’re finally awake! How are you feeling?”

“Thirsty,” John rasped. 

Lionel was at his side within a few seconds with a water bottle. John graciously took it and guzzled as much as his body could handle. “I’m gonna get the doctor,” the detective informed him. John nodded, and Lionel took his leave. 

He turned back to Harold and took in the other man’s appearance. It was clear Harold hadn’t been eating or sleeping. A layer of stubble covered his jaw, and his suit was wrinkled almost passed recognition. “You look like hell, Harold,” John teased. 

Harold laughed. His entire face was lit up, and John thought it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. “You should see yourself, John,” he shot back. 

“Samaritan?” John inquired. 

“Dead,” Harold responded. “You did it, John. And you still made it back to me.” He paused, eyes glistening. “You are amazing.”

“I had to make it back. There was still something I needed to tell you,” John admitted. With the way Harold was looking at him now, there was no way he couldn’t say it. The other man deserved to know. “I love you.”

His eyes shone with happiness through the gathering tears. “I love you too, John,” he said. A few tears broke away and trailed down his cheeks. “And I’m never leaving you behind again.” Harold leaned over and pressed his lips against John’s in a chaste kiss. John wanted more, but his body was too weak to do much. 

The door to the hospital room was pushed in, and a doctor walked in with Lionel behind her. “Mister Riley, it’s so good to see you awake,” she greeted him. “Mind if I check you over?”

“Go ahead,” John consented. 

Harold stayed beside him the whole time, holding his hand until the doctor confirmed that he was still healing at a proper pace. She replaced the medicine in his IV before leaving and informed him she would be back in an hour to check up on him. 

Once she was gone, Lionel spoke up. “I missed you, partner.”

John smiled up at him gratefully. “How did you find me?” he asked. “The last thing I remember is crawling away from that rooftop.”

“The paramedics found you when they searched the building,” Harold answered. “But The Machine led us to you.”

“So she made it back too,” John said. 

“Yeah. You guys are like a bunch of cockroaches,” Lionel replied with a soft laugh, then turned to Harold. “Speaking of cockroaches, did you tell him about Nutter Butter yet?”

John furrowed his eyebrows and looked to Harold in confusion. “Miss Groves is alive,” Harold replied to the unasked question. 

Miraculous was the only word John could think of as he closed his eyes and sighed. “Is everything alright, John?” Harold questioned, worried. 

“Harold, we just saved the world,” John replied. “I’ve never been better.”

Harold only smiled and leaned down to kiss him once more, not caring that Lionel was watching.


End file.
